Dengue fever is the most common arthropod-borne viral disease in the world. The virus causing dengue (i.e. DENV) can be divided into four different infective serotypes such as DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4. Symptoms of dengue infection include fever, muscle pain, headache, low platelet numbers and low white blood cell numbers, coagulopathy, bleeding and vascular leakage that can lead to dengue shock syndrome. When a person is exposed to the dengue virus after a previous dengue infection, antiviral antibodies may enhance the uptake of virus into host cells and the patient is at higher risk to develop a severe form or dengue. Severe forms of dengue can, however, also occur during a first infection.
Whilst being the most common arthropod-borne viral disease, to date, there is no drug for dengue. Approaches with regards to dengue have mainly been towards the prevention of the infection and/or treatment to alleviate symptoms.
Thus, there is a need to provide agents capable of neutralizing and/or binding to at least one dengue serotype.